Pakistan to enhance customs, tax cooperation with UAE

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates have agreed to enhance tax and customs cooperation, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) said after a meeting of its chairman with the UAE ambassador on Thursday.
FBR chairman Asim Ahmed met UAE Ambassador Hamad Obaid Ibrahim Al-Zaabi at the tax agency’s headquarters in Islamabad.
“It was agreed in the meeting that relevant departments of both countries would further promote cooperation in the field of customs and other inland taxes and would learn from each other’s best practices,” the FBR said in a statement.
The measures, the tax office said, would also result in increased trading volume between the two countries.
As the cash-strapped South Asian nation has been struggling to increase its tax revenues, it agreed with the UAE in 2019 to develop better mechanisms to share tax information about Pakistanis investing in the Gulf country, as it tries to counter possible attempts by nationals trying to conceal illegal wealth.
More than 1.2 million Pakistanis live and work in the UAE, which is the second-largest, after Saudi Arabia, contributor to Pakistan’s remittance inflows.